Latin America’s Los Turcos:
Geographic Aspects of
Levantine and Maghreb
Diasporas
Aaron Moore*
Kent Mathewson**
*Nacionalidad: Estadounidense. Grado: Undergraduate. Especialización: Political
Science Mayor. First Year Law Student, University of Texas. Adscripción: Lousiana
State University. Correo de contacto: [email protected]
**Nacionalidad: Estadounidense. Grado: Doctor. Book Review Editor. Annals of
the AAG. Especialización: Geography and Anthropology. Adscripción: Professor
at Department of Geography & Anthropology. Louisiana State University. Correo
de contacto: [email protected]
Fecha de recepción: 23 de agosto de 2012
Fecha de aceptación: 28 de octubre de 2012
Resumen
Los turcos en América Latina comprenden un grupo étnico, cultural y re­
ligioso diverso de inmigrantes en la región. A pesar del éxito y la visi­bilidad
de este grupo y su número en muchos países de América Latina, la investigación sobre estos descendientes de los pueblos del Medio Oriente, ha sido
sorprendentemente carente en algunas áreas. Este documento, elabora­do a
partir de la mayoría de la literatura disponible, examina las similitudes entre
ellos, lo cual ayudó a diferenciarlos más de los del Medio Oriente, no solo
de las pobla­ciones de nativos, sino también de otros inmigrantes a América
Latina, pues persiste la incorrecta etiqueta de “turco” para señalar a una supuesta minoría étnica y como un marcador cultural compartido por varios
subgrupos. En este trabajo también se analiza el registro de los turcos en
varios países (Argentina, Brasil, Chile y Honduras). El documento pone de
relieve aspectos importantes de la experiencia de este grupo, como parte de
la diáspora de Oriente Medio en América Latina.
Palabras clave: diáspora, inmigración, los turcos, levante, Magreb.
Abstract
Latin America’s los turcos comprise an ethnically, culturally and religiously
diverse group of immigrants to the region. Despite the success and visibility
of this group and their numbers in many countries throughout Latin America, research on these Middle Eastern-descended peoples has been surprisingly lacking in some areas. This paper, drawn from the much of the available
literature, examines similarities-which helped to further differentiate the
Middle Easterners not only from the native-born populations but also from
other immigrants to Latin America and helped the inaccurate label turco to
persist as an ethnic and cultural marker shared by a number of subgroups.
This paper also looks at the record of los turcos in several countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Honduras). The paper highlights important aspects
of this group’s experiences as part of the Middle Eastern diaspora in Latin
America.
Key Words: diaspora, immigration, los turcos, Levant, Maghreb
Latin America’s Los Turcos: Geographic Aspects of Levantine and Maghreb Diasporas
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Introduction
“Los turcos” may be Latin America’s least studied ethnic formation, yet
they are present in every nation, and with significant concentrations
in some regions and cities. While hardly ubiquitous, they are at once
familiar figures in the cultural, political, and economic life of Latin
America, yet genealogically they represent a phantom category. Despite their name, very few are of Turkish decent. The turcos are almost
entirely descended from non-Turkish peoples who emigrated from
parts of the Ottoman Empire, hence the misnomer “Turk” or “turco.”
Despite ethnic and religious differences, they have followed similar
trajectories in both coming to the Americas, and in becoming Latin
Americans. As a result, this has solidified their image as a single entity
in the popular imagination. Yet each ethnic fraction continues to think
of itself in different ways, while maintaining an ambivalent identity as
“turcos.” In this paper we discuss some of the aspects and contours
of the turco diaspora and presence in Latin America. It would seem
that it is a wide-open research topic. We have found surprisingly little
published scholarly material on some of the groups of turcos and their
place in Latin America.
Historical Background
Immigration from the lands of the former Ottoman Empire and the
rest of the Middle East to the Americas began in the 19th century. The
Sephardic Jews from Morocco- which was the only territory along the
southern, eastern, and northeastern coasts of the Mediterranean that
had not been at one time under the control of the Ottomans- were
among the first to immigrate in the 1850s (Klich and Lesser 1996).
By the late 1850s the ravages of the Crimean War set another group
in motion. One pioneering group of Palestinians left at this time for
Chile (Holston 2005). The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 had
major impacts on the Eastern Mediterranean region. Trade via land
routes declined, bringing economic disruptions to various regions and
peoples. In turn, violence against the Christians in Lebanon caused
Shared Traits
Whether Jewish, Armenian or Arab, one of their common traits was
their disinclination for manual agricultural work. Most host country
formal immigration programs sought future farmers or farm workers.
The Levantine and North African immigrants chose instead to work
as peddlers (Karam 2007; Karpat 1985; Klich and Lesser 1998). This
brought initial condemnation by both public officials and the press.
However, most of the itinerant peddlers soon became fixed merchants
and insinuated themselves into the economic, if not always social,
fabric of their communities and regions. Another common charac-
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Vol. 22 • número 43 • Tomo II • 2013
the Turks to relocate these people to the less fertile regions. Maronites
and various groups of Orthodox Christians began a mass migration to
the New World. Smaller numbers of Muslims and a few Druze also
headed to the Americas (Karpat 1985). Some Armenians, especially
following the Turkish eradication campaigns, sought refuge in Latin
America (Grün 1996). Arabs from the other parts of Southwest Asia
and a small number of ethnic Turks also came to Latin America. In
total population numbers, Syria and Lebanon provided the most immigrants (Karpat 1985).
On the whole, “push” factors (war, ethnic-religious strife, economic conditions) propelled most of the “turco” immigration. However, there were some “pull” factors at work as well. In 1877 Dom Pedro
II visited the Ottoman Empire and fomented a great deal of interest in Brazil and South America among the Lebanese and Syrians.
Throughout his reign, Dom Pedro II promoted immigration from
abroad. Many turcos-to-be heeded the call. Some were young men
dodging the Ottoman military draft, others were simply seeking new
opportunities. Steady waves kept coming over until World War I cut
off this flow. After the Treaty of Versailles, large numbers began again
to leave the Levant for Latin America (Karpat 1985). A third wave of
Sephardic Jews left North Africa as the rising wave of Arab nationalism became more hostile towards them in the early 1950 (Klich and
Lesser 1998).
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teristic of these groups were closely bound families. In addition, the
patterns of settlement all seemed to concentrate in urban areas, on the
coast or near rivers, such as Guayaquil, Buenos Aires and São Paulo
(Almeida 1996; Almeida 2004; Morrison 2005). While a few immigrant groups (such as the Arabs in Colombia or Sephardic Jews in
Cuba) did not immediately settle in an urban area, they rarely stayed
in the countryside past the first generation (Klich and Lesser 1998;
Almeida 2004). The host societies struggled to categorize the Jewish,
Armenian and Arab groups. What protected them from being labeled as undesirables was their economic success (Karpat 1985). Finally,
while there was definitely acculturation, each group was somewhat of
an outsider in society.
A noticeable split occurs among the group in terms of their original intention to make their home in the New World. Certainly
the Armenians did not plan on returning to live in their homeland
again. However, the Palestinians in Chile and Honduras, some of
the Sephardic Jews from North Africa, the Orthodox Christians from
what is today Syria as well and many Maronites intended to go back
home. As a result, there was an unusually high rate of return- perhaps
as much as a third of the Middle Eastern immigrants returned to the
Eastern Mediterranean (Karpat 1985).
Among those that remained, something of a hybrid identity was
forged. Although the label “turco” may not be fully embraced by those
that fall under its rubric, it is generally understood by both those of
Levantine and North African origins and the rest of Latin American society that the “turcos” are distinctive, yet they have succeeded in
largely assimilating into the local and national cultures in which they
reside. The creation of the label Syro-Lebanese has been one of the
most interesting outcomes of this immigration. This is a term that
has no root in the Middle East. The Orthodox peoples from what is
now Syria and Maronites from Lebanon (the vast majority of the immigrants from these two countries belonged to these denominations)
have always been aware of their differences and certainly were aware
of the creation of these two nations. Yet the term Syro-Lebanese may
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Vol. 22 • número 43 • Tomo II • 2013
have been used to bring unity in a society where some latent hostility
could be felt (Karpat 1985).
The term turco has mostly been rejected in most ways by the immigrants and their descendants. The Armenians, who fled because of
violence committed by the Turks, are the most outspoken in throwing
off the term though the Syrian and Lebanese descended groups have,
at most, only tolerated this word. However, there are instances when
the Sephardic Jews as well as other descendants of Eastern Mediterraneans have used the image of the Turks to evoke an exotic image
and differentiate their businesses from similar ones, such as a Jewishowned café in Buenos Aires (Klich and Lesser 1996).
One common feature seen in the immigration was how people
from the same region would settle in the same city or area in the Americas. The Lebanese community in the Yucatán Peninsula was mainly
composed of immigrants who came from a handful of villages near
Mount Lebanon (Rámirez 1994: 459). The Lebanese who immigrated to Colombia’s Lorica region also originated from just a few places.
The Armenians who settled in Sao Paulo mostly came from Western
Armenia as well as the Cilicia region of Turkey (Grün 1996). Most of
the Palestinians in Honduras were descended from immigrants who
came from Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahur (Zabel 2006). Similarly, most of the Palestinian community in Chile came from Nazareth (Luxner 2002b).
The turcos occupied an unusual place in early society. They were
hard to classify in the prevailing racial systems. They were not the
North or Western European types so desired by the Latin American
officials who supported immigration. However, many of the Middle
Eastern immigrants were indistinguishable from the criollo/blanco
populations (Moya 2004). The turcos also did not fall into the undesirable racial categories that the early 20th century Latin American
elites wanted to avoid (Karpat 1985). Many Latin American officials,
who still dreamed of a society built on agriculture, disapproved of their
peddling ways (Lesser 1994; Truzzi 1997; El Attar 2006). On the
other hand, the turcos achieved a high rate of success and were generally law-abiding, so the officials did not make any real attempts to
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halt their immigration until the late 1920s, when nativist movements
became popular (Klich and Lesser 1998; Klich and Lesser 1996; Karpat 1985).
The disdain initially directed towards the turcos for their proclivities for peddling was also shared by some members of the general
population, who were attracted by the agricultural worker archetype.
The turcos were seen as profiting off the hard work of others. These
immigrants’ frugality caused them to be labeled as stingy. This contributed to an image of the turcos as untrustworthy. Nevertheless, such
images failed to rouse these members of the population. To be sure
there were some rants against the turcos by newspapers and public figures but these were normally based on cold calculations. Such speeches sprung from the economic motives (one example is that of businessmen in Lorica who paid a newspaper to rail against immigrants
from Lebanon, whom they saw as threatening to take over a market
they had previously held) and political (such as the successful campaign to bar Assad Bucaram from running on the presidential ticket
due to his grandparents not being born on Ecuadorean soil) (Viloria
2004; Almeida 1996). The public seemed to like the cuisine of these
immigrants and had a high regard for the traditions of those from
the Mahgreb, though Arabs from this region came in sparse numbers
to Latin America (Klich and Lesser 2005). The turcos may not have
been universally liked but on the other hand there is no evidence that
they were seen by the general public as an enemy or a threat.
Though no real movements against the turcos resulted, life could
still be uneasy in some cases. For example, in Argentina some murders
of turcos received only the minimum of police investigation. Some of
this deliberate inattention had to do with the power and influence of
the perpetrators and it is possible a real effort might have occurred
only if the victim had been of a similar status as the criminal. As a
result of this immigrants would on occasion ask a foreign power to
intervene for them when it seemed as if justice could not be had anyway. The Sephardic Jews who came from Morocco to Brazil asked
for and received the help of the British government on a few occasions. In Argentina France and the Ottoman Empire supported the
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Assimilation Strategies
The Arab turcos tried to combat the negative images from early on.
One of the first attempts by these immigrants to show the rest of the
populace to show they had common ground was evoke the rule of alAndalus, the time when the Moors ruled over Spain (El Attar 2006).
No doubt the immigrants were thinking of the cultural achievements
of the time period as well as the fact that the Iberian Peninsula was
then unquestionably the most advanced part of Europe. This backfired, as the former Latin American colonies had significant sentimental ties with Spain, and this only brought up memories of the
long struggle by the people of the mother country against their hated
rulers. Later attempts to make a favorable impression on the other
Latin Americans showed more cultural understanding.
Perhaps one of the most interesting trends in the Levantines’ attempts to connect with the larger population has been their attempt to
reinterpret some Latin American trends as springing up from the Eastern Mediterraneans themselves. This extends far beyond the Mediterranean stereotypes and claims that the origins of some Latin American customs come from Middle Easterners themselves. The legend
of Marataize, which says that a town in Espírito Santo is supposedly
named after a peddler named Aziz, is one bold claim. Other promoters of the turco culture would claim that churrasco and the bombachas,
which so readily bring up images of South American gauchos, are derived from Lebanese traditions. The foundations for such claims lay
in some trends in Brazilian culture. One popular fancy was that King
Solomon, “ancestor of the Syrians”, once had made a journey as far as
the Amazon and that both the Andean highland language Quechua
as well as Portuguese came from Hebrew (El Attar 2006). The search
for the Moorish elements present in Brazilian culture caused some
intellectuals to conflate North Africa and the Mediterranean states
and as a result some questionable and now discredited claims became
accepted by many prominent Brazilian thinkers (Lesser 1996).
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turcos, whose number one problem was the large amount of unsolved
murders (Klich 1993).
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However, most of the ways that the turcos tried to improve relations with their neighbors were not as disastrous as the al-Andalus
evocation nor as attention-grabbing as claims to be the source of
bombachas and churrasco. Something that was more typical would be
the Syrian and Lebanese immigrants established charity hospitals for
whole communities (Morrison 2005; Moya 2006). The second generation of the Syrian and Lebanese communities also became more
vocal and opposed the negative images that others published. Most
of it came in letters to the editor pointing out the unfair elements of
descriptions of the Syrians and Lebanese. Satire also was a response
(Viloria 2004).
The Armenians blended in by appealing to the ideal of the fairhaired immigrants desired by the elites, emphasizing the suffering
they experienced under the Ottoman Empire and brought up the role
of an Armenian king in fighting against the Turks during the Crusades (Grün 1996).
The changing of last names was another way the turcos tried to fit
in. Many Arab names were altered to a suitable counterpart. Sometimes this happened in the first generation, as was done by many Syrian
and Lebanese immigrants who came to Colombia (Viloria de la Hoz
2004). In others this happened later, such as in the third or fourth
generation, which became more common Arabs in southern Mexico
(Ramírez 1994: 479). Still, a large number of last names remained
unaltered.
Intercommunal Relations
Today the ties to their homelands have been fully embraced. Social
clubs in Brazil and Chile, for example, all bear the name of a city
or people in the Middle East. Sao Paulo has Club Homs and Club
Zahle (Morrison 2005). In Santiago there are Club Palestino, Club
Árabe, and Omar Khayyam (Luxner 2002a). In cities throughout
South America with sizable Arab populations such script is still used
on some restaurants and other buildings.
The Rua 25 de Marco of Sao Paulo is perhaps the most famous
street associated with immigrants from the Middle East. It is popu-
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Vol. 22 • número 43 • Tomo II • 2013
lated mostly by immigrants from Lebanon, Armenia and Syria. Few
places in Brazil have been so closely associated with peddlers or mascates. Each would use their earnings from peddling to achieve success in several industries, though a few would be strongly associated
with the subgroups of the turcos in the public mind. For the Arabs and
Jews it was the textile industry. For Armenians shoes would be the
items they became known for (Klich and Lesser 1996).
Also remarkable was that how for the immigrants the hostility
that existed between some groups in the Middle East disappeared.
Though conflicts with the Druze and Muslims were one of the reasons that caused a mass migration of the Maronites, they managed to
live side by side peacefully with them in South America (Karpat 1985;
Klich and Lesser 2005). Indeed, there are no records of communal
conflict in the Americas. The immigrants, whatever their ethnicity or
religion, were quite conciliatory towards one another. Newspapers published by Christians reached out to Muslims (Morrison 2005). Some
of the few ethnic Turks who actually came to Latin America lived in
a neighborhood colloquially known as Armenia in Sao Paulo (Karpat
1985). Decades later, during the devastating Lebanese civil war, tensions were unquestionably raised between Brazilians of Syrian and
Lebanese descent but hostility failed to break out. A high school girl
perhaps best exemplified the thoughts that kept these two together:
she visited Lebanon after the civil war ended deplored the destruction
but said that she did believe that a spilt should arrive in the Brazilian
Syro-Lebanese community as a result of this (Karam 2007).
Despite the high level of tolerance of each group of the turcos for
each other some distance unmistakably remained. Each religious and
national group tended to marry inside the community. In other words,
a Greek Orthodox would marry a Greek Orthodox, a Maronite would
marry a Maronite and so on (Karam 2007; Klich and Lesser 1998).
Even in Buenos Aires, where a large number of turcos are found, the
Syro-Lebanese seem to have settled in neighborhoods where others
of the same religious denomination predominate (Brieger and Herszkowich 2002). There are some exceptions. Some of the early generations of Armenians and Christian Arabs intermarried in Argentina
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and Brazil (Klich and Lesser 1996). The case of Muslims is harder
to interpret. There are certainly examples of Muslim families from
the early 1900s in the Americas but it has been noted that those who
came had one of the smallest rates of female immigration of any group
(Karpat 1985). One author has hypothesized that most of the Muslim men, not able to find a spouse who was of the same religion, Religion played different roles in the community. For the Armenians, the
church served as the center of their society (Grün 2006). Islam, on the
other hand, took a lesser role. A large number of the followers of Islam who came to the Americas converted to Christianity and othersespecially in the second generation- became nonpracticing Muslims
or Christians (Karpat 1985; Karam 2007). Some still maintained
their religion and one of the largest mosques in America was built in
the early 1930s in Brazil (Klich and Lesser 1996). Yet, Islam had only
a slight amount of visibility in the Americas. For the Maronites and
Orthodox, religion was important but failed to be the center of the
community. The churches and cathedrals were community centers
but in the end ethnicity and language bound these sect members together with others in the Americas (Klich and Lesser 1998; Hyland
2011; Humphrey 2004; Marín 2008).
Cultural Traits
Ethnicity served to determine the identities of all the groups that fall
under the designation turcos. The Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinians and
the handful of others from countries such as Iraq and Egypt consider
themselves Arabs though the subdivisions still exist and matter (Klich
and Lesser 1996). The Sephardic Jews mixed into the overall Jewish
populations of whatever country they went to. The Armenians had
the most success in staying free of the designation turco and were perhaps the hardest group for the authorities to properly classify in the
racial hierarchy.
Though there is no doubt that the people of Lebanese descent
in this region consider themselves Arab. Yet their identity takes a
narrower ethnic element with the frequent use of Phoenician in selfdescription. One Arab nationalist in Brazil emphasized this ancient
National Destinations
The turco immigrants to Mexico consisted of Sephardic Jews as well
as Arab immigrants. A large number of these Sephardic Jews were
from Morocco and Turkey but many were from Syria, including
Damascus and Aleppo (Roniger 2010; Alfaro-Velcamp 2006). The
Arabs were mainly from Lebanon. They settled in Mexico City, the
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Vol. 22 • número 43 • Tomo II • 2013
people and ancestors of so many people of the Eastern Mediterranean
when defending the new immigrants as civilized. Phoenicians are
most evoked when these immigrants are explaining their economic
success. Whether in Mexico or Ecuador, these turcos say that a high
level of skill in trade and business was inherited from the Phoenicians.
Though such claims are questionable, they serve as a way of reinforcing group identity among these people (Moya 2006).
Transnational ties have always been strong among these groups
but these bonds are most noteworthy among the Syrian and Lebanese. These two peoples for most of the early years of immigration had the highest rate of return to their home countries (Karpat
1985). Ties between family members and business partners extended
through the Americas and reached the Arab world (Klich and Lesser 1996; Karpat1985). The Lebanese president Camille Chamoun
visited South America in the early 1960s. Companies in the Middle
East successfully aim homeland tours at the Syrian and Lebanese in
Brazil and Argentina. In the early 2000s Syrian Brazilians cast votes
in the South American country that were part of the Syrian plebiscite
process (Morrison 2005).
The preservation of language among each group has differed.
Among the Sephardic Jews, Arabic and Ladino both seem to be in
danger of dying out as fewer younger members are interested in learning either (Alfaro-Velcamp 2006b). Arabic use has predictably decreased among descendants of Arabs but it seems to be in the process
of making something of a comeback among the younger generations
(Morrison 2005). None of the Armenians are vocal with fears that
their language is going to die out though inevitably its use has declined (Grün 1996).
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state of Yucatán, and the cities of Veracruz and Puebla. One of the
products peddled by these immigrants was jewelry. After moving past
the peddling stage, the immigrants, aside from textiles, sold real estate,
alcoholic drinks and, in Mérida, henequen (Alfaro-Velcamp 2006a;
Ramírez 1994). As with similar groups in other countries, the economic progress continued until a high number of them were in the upper
class. Mexico today has around a half a million people of Lebanese
and Syrian descent and twenty thousand Sephardic Jews (Alfaro-Velcamp 2006b).
Christian Palestinians far outnumbered any other immigrants from
the Middle East to Chile and account for around ninety-five percent
of the total number (Holston 2005). The Christian Palestinians were
also among the earliest immigrants to Latin America, with only the
Sephardic Jews in North Africa who left for Brazil following the outbreak of the second Moroccan-Spanish War reaching the Americas
ahead of them. The Palestinians left due to the effects of the Crimean
War. These Chileans had their success in both peddling and agriculture, something that was unusual for other groups of turcos (Bray1962;
Zabel 2006). They had a presence in both the largest cities, including
Santiago and Valparaiso, but also were readily found in small villages.
According to an old Chilean saying, each village has a policeman, a
priest and a Palestinian (Holston 2005). The population of the Palestinian community is estimated to be around 350,000.
Christian Palestinians also make up almost all of the turcos (the
total population is around 200,000) in Honduras. The vast majority of the Palestinians were from Betlehem, Beit Sahur and Beit Jala
(Luxner 2002a, Luxner 2002b). Unlike those in Chile, a large part
of the Palestinians in Honduras planned to- and did- return home.
These Hondurans entered Honduras simply because of a desire to
be someplace in the Americas or were the victims of unscrupulous
people whose aid they had sought in making the voyage across the
Atlantic Ocean (Brettell 1993; Zabel 2006). Nevertheless, they found
success and as conditions in Palestine worsened for Arabs there was
less incentive to resettle there. The creation of Israel and the enormous barriers faced by them in any attempt to return meant that they
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stayed in Honduras (Zabel 2006). By then, most of the Palestinians
had settled in the city of San Pedro Sula, where they form a large part
of the population today (Luxner 2002a). The legal obstacles faced
by the Palestinians within the country were steep and stopped their
involvement in politics for some time (Zabel 2006). Nevertheless in
the 1990s, one member of the Palestinian community, Roberto Flores,
became president of Honduras (Luxner 2002b).
In Cuba the Sephardim made up most of the Jewish population.
Moroccan Jews began arriving here shortly after Cuba’s independence
in 1902. The numbers of the Sephardim increased in the early 1920s
after Turkish Jews from Thrace and the European half of Istanbul
fled the Greek invasion of their home country (Bejarano 2002). The
Jewish population was small and while some politicians didn’t hesitate
to vilify them, these people overall were well-treated. The Sephardim
and the various groups of Ashkenazi never became close so the Jews
in general were quite fragmented (Kaplan 2010). When Fidel Castro
came to power in 1959, ninety percent of the island’s Jews left the
country. The few who remained were Sephardim (LaPorte, Sweifach
and Strug 2009).
Argentina attracted a wide range of immigrants from Syria and
Lebanon beginning in the 1880s. Once again, the Orthodox and Maronites made up the largest part of the immigrants though there were
substantial numbers of Muslims and a small number of Druze (Klich
and Lesser 1998; Brieger and Herszkowich 2002). A small percentage
of Armenians fleeing from the massacres and Turkish Jews from Izmir
and Anatolia who left to avoid the ravages of war after the country was avoided (Liebman 1981; Bejarano 2002; Marquiegui 2002).
These immigrants had mixed experiences in their new country. As
mentioned before, the Argentinian justice system sometimes would
not work for them (Klich 1993). On the other hand, they attained
a similar level of economic success in the other countries of Latin
America (Klich and Lesser 1996). Also, these immigrants attained a
number of powerful positions-including consulates, ambassadorships
and generals- faster than the Middle Eastern immigrants in other
countries (Klich 1996; Jozami 2002).
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Brazil has the largest population of turcos and they are mostly Arab
with some Armenians and Jews. Sephardic Jews led the way and they
settled in the south, in Pará (Lesser 1996). When the first massive
wave of Arabs followed in the 1880s, they were mostly of Lebanese
and Syrian descent and would go to Pará, Río Grande do Sul and Sao
Paulo (Morrison 2005). Most of these were Maronites; there were also
some Greek Orthodox and a smaller group of Muslims (Lesser 1996;
Karam 2007). A small group of Armenians came to work on the ports
of Santos and Río de Janeiro in the late 1800s. Many more Armenians
came in the 1910s, fleeing the widespread violence directed against
them by the Ottoman Empire. The Brazilian turcos were some of the
most vocal of the Middle Eastern immigrants to the Americas. The
Armenians became the most successful group in dissociating themselves from the turco label while the Arab newspapers of Brazil received
some of the strongest followings in the Americas (Grün 2006; Karpat
1985). The turcos mixed in with society well. Today over a million
Arab “turcos” live in São Paulo alone (Morrison 2005).
Conclusions
Successful turcos include a long list of people famous throughout
not only their countries and the region but also the world. In entertainment, actress Salma Hayek and the superstar singer Shakira
are recognized throughout the world (Cawley 2003; Holston 2007).
The Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Helú has the distinction of
being the richest person alive (Saltzstein 2011; Yabroff 2008). A
number of people of Arab descent have held the presidency in their
countries, including Carlos Menem of Argentina, Abdalá Bucaram
of Ecuador and Carlos Roberto Flores of Honduras (Klich and Lesser 1996). Although the turcos maintain a sense of ethnic identity in
varying degrees with their ancestral places of origin, they are also very
much citizens of the country their parents and grandparents moved
to. One can only speculate as to whether succeeding generations will
continue to identify with these places of origin, or occupy subcultural
niches within the national societies. Given that the recent currents
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